


Stage Combat

by Linenpixel



Series: Prism Arc [1]
Category: Invisible Inc. (Video Game)
Genre: Anti-Black Racism, Canon-Typical Violence, Dystopia, Execution Mention, Implied Drug Use, Microaggressions, Misogyny, Multi, Pre-Canon, Racism, Swearing, War Mention, character death is only in story-within-story, human medical experimentation mention, if you’ve read Prism’s data bank file you have some idea what this is about, rape mention, sort of (uses data bank info), very brief alcohol mention, why Prism doesn't want to talk about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-02 19:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11516106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linenpixel/pseuds/Linenpixel
Summary: It's 2069, and the Resource Wars ended over ten years ago. While trying to launch a second career as a singer, Prism throws herself into a challenging new role: Olivia Gladstone in The Istanbul Four.





	1. Chapter 1

Los Angeles, 2069

* * *

 

“Tell us what the problems are, Esther. Talk to us.”

Carl leans forward, his whole face radiating concern. I have long ago stopped trying to tell which of his emotes are genuine. 

> _here I stand_
> 
> _I am taking my crystal out of your hands_

“I’m just not sure what … not sure if this is how I want it to go. It’s … ”

The three men — Carl, Ramesh, and Javier — watch as I try to put this into words. As soon as I get something down on paper it’s all clear, or clearer, but out loud, like this, I can’t articulate it. What it is I want this song to say. No. I know exactly what it is I want to say; it’s that getting it from there to something that works as a song …

… that is the kind of song they want …

… is a challenge.

“Writing is hard,” I finish.

“No, no, this is great. I can absolutely hear it as a power ballad.” Carl straightens up, in his element now that he can reassure me.

“Now this bit here,” he says, growing slightly louder with every word, “we are a bit mixed on.”

> _you try to control me because you envy_
> 
> _I am rock hard diamond and you’re scared_

He jabs a finger at the screen. “Why did you change _I was born_ to _I am_ , right here?”

He’s holding my phone. We’re using Track Changes.

“It just seemed to fit better.”

I’m not going to tell him that it’s because I thought _I was born_ might read as gender-essentialist. There is no way I am going to try to explain that to Carl.

“It just worked better,” I repeat, and he smiles at what he perceives as my inability to express myself. 

“If you need the help of a songwriter, Esther, just tell us. We’ve offered many times.”

“I know, but I want to write this myself. I know I can do this.” I put just the right amount of innocence into my next words. “If you could tell me what exactly I could improve on, I’ll work on that.”

“Well, now, it’s not so much a matter of improvement as it is of … is of … well, let’s look at this next bit, shall we?”

> _you say thank heaven_

“I see you changed ‘God’ to ‘heaven’ — yes, that’s probably a better choice —” 

> _you can see right through me_
> 
> _there are no secrets_
> 
> _between me and you_

“Now that bit, I have to say, I think could use some more work. It just doesn’t really _pop_.”

He snaps his hands open and closed and open again, as though that conveys the true essence of _pop_.

I’m actually in agreement with him there — about _that bit_ — it isn’t the greatest — or at least it doesn’t sound like what I wanted, like what was in my head …

But before I can respond he goes on, “but we love the _rock hard diamond_ part, and I do like _I_ _was born_ , I do like that, it just flows better, in my opinion.”

“I’m not sure,” I say carefully. “I might change that bit entirely. There’s no point debating individual words when the whole section might go.”

“You need more confidence in yourself, Esther,” he proclaims.

“Couldn’t we all use that?” says Ramesh, delivering it as though it’s a joke. Everyone ignores him.

“I’m sure I can come up with something better.”

“Well, perhaps. And we can come back to it. We can come back to it. Perhaps. And we really do like, I really want to emphasize how much we like, the _out of your hands_ bit, and this here” — he scrolls — “this bit, _into my own hands_.”

“I’m not sure how that fits in yet. This is just a rough draft.”

“Confidence, Esther. And we like what we’re seeing, we really do …”

I would prefer to be called Prism, not Esther, but they insist that Prism is my stage name, and this is _off stage_ , and we’re all on a _first name basis_ here …

“And I really think …” He clears his throat. “I really think it’s going to work … that is, that it works … as it is …”

Just say it, Carl, come on …

“… in our early meeting stages, me and Soren …”

That’s the music vid director. I’ve only met him in person once so far.

“… we had some ideas for a … different direction, but I really think, coming from you, this will work as … as … that is, fairly similar to the demo you recorded …" 

He looks at me as though he expects me to help him.

“That was just with placeholder lyrics,” I offer innocently.

“Of course, of course, and I really think that yes, you can … you can pull this off …”

“We were impressed with your voice,” says Ramesh, gently offering Carl an opportunity to stop digging. Which isn’t quite what I’d do as far as hypothetical shovels are concerned here.

“Yes, yes, very …”

You aren’t going to say it, are you? That you and Soren wanted to make it sound “more Black”. And the reason you changed your mind has nothing to do with my voice. You won’t say it, and I’m not sure you can say it, not sure you’re physically capable of admitting there’s something there to talk about …

“We did have a few other notes concerning the motivation of the song …” Ramesh pretends to be consulting a list on his phone, but we all know he just wants Carl to move on.

“Ah, yes, mustn’t forget that. Thank you, Ramesh. Of course, Esther, you remember what we discussed earlier, about the importance of presenting a holistic image, both in relation to yourself and in relation to all our stars, and how we … uh …” He gives up on that sentence. Straightens up. “That is, we believe it would be in your best interests to make this song consistent with the other publicity efforts you are involved in.”

Ah, yes. My feud with Makinney Stuveysant. Which hasn’t happened yet, but will. 

I know how to pick my battles.

And Holovid has decided it’s in _everyone’s_ best interests for me to have a public feud with a young charismatic White starlet.

It’s inevitable. This is the business. Nothing can stay static. Their image for me for a long time was “ingenue”— and when I started out, it was mostly true … despite the efforts of my parents …

But now they’ve decided it’s time for me to _grow_.

“I’m working on that,” I say. “I’m trying to tie it into the lyrics. Of course, I might just not be in the right emotional place yet.”

Thank God they didn’t involve Kieran, at least. No, this feud has been grafted on to the existing — and apparently real — beef between Makinney and Cotre. I mean real in that they actually had a say in it. Anyway, since it involves Makinney and Cotre it of course involves B-Jon, and less predictably also Shane Grayling — It’s me appearing to blame Shane for what happened with Adrienne Winter that starts it all off, and I have to say some really foolish things, things calculated to make women rush to Makinney’s defense, but by the end she and I come out looking about equally good. Well, no. That’s what they’ve told me. I know it’s not true. But anyway most of the blame eventually shifts to B-Jon, which in my opinion is where it should actually be for the Adrienne thing. In as much as I care about any of this.

“Of course, of course you’re working on it,” Carl enthuses. “We don’t doubt your emotional capacities, Esther.”

What … what does that even mean? Okay, it’s not worth thinking about.

He continues, “we just want to be sure that you’re completely committed to integrating this publicity effort into your image.”

“You can count on me.” I smile. “I have my script down pat. Unless you have any changes.”

“No, no — but please, Esther, don’t think of it as a script. We’ve made suggestions only. We want this to be _in your own hands_.”

He stops, realizing what he’s said, but then bravely soldiers on. “We want this to be _you_.” 

It’s not like we all don’t know what’s really going on here. There is a certain type of controlled, allowable rebellion that will sell.

And I will slip myself into the cracks of it, to achieve … nothing, really. But I will still fight for every bit of it. For every line of my song.

“… the real you.” He’s still going on. “We want the authentic. Every bit of your lived experience, that you bring to this, will inform this. We can’t write this for you.” He laughs. “Well, we can provide you with songwriters, of course, but they’re only there to capture _you_. Because Esther — Esther — if you can pull this off, we think we can get some great thinkpieces out of it.”

_Carl, can you actually hear yourself?_

But I can’t say that — not least because I don’t really want to know the answer. There is a distinct possibility that yes, he can.

“Victor did want us to go over the optics notes with you once more,” says Ramesh. He looks at me but is really talking to Carl, reminding him.

“Ah, yes. You already have them on here, don’t you? I’ll just bring them up for you.”

Carl pokes inexpertly at my phone for about thirty seconds, then hands it back to me. He has indeed brought up the right doc.

I look at the notes. I’ve already read them several times. “Will this take long? I have to be at training in ten minutes.”

“No, we changed that from 4:00 to 4:30,” says Javier.

Javier who is, by the way, _my personal assistant_ , and who has been sitting here the whole time holding his phone at an angle calculated to let us see that he’s very busy with his scheduling app.

“Then I guess I do have time now.” I smile. They smile. Approvingly.

We spend forty-five more minutes talking about essentially nothing. They finish by, once again, offering me a ghostwriter, both for the song and the _totally unscripted_ feud.

I say no, with a toss of my hair. I can afford to be a bit of a diva — it even helps me — as long as I pick only the right moments. 

 

* * *

 

They’ve made me slightly late for training, but I still don’t hurry as I walk across the Holovid studio campus. The sun is beating down and I’m not getting any sweatier for this than absolutely necessary.

I was already trained in stage combat, of course, but I have to take extra classes for my newest role. Normally I don’t do my own stunts, but this project was conceived as a fully immersive senso-holo experience, and so they need not just my image but my neural patterns. There are workarounds in the technology that make it possible to use stunt doubles — software that can merge the readouts from multiple people — but that’s expensive, and still partly experimental. It requires lot of fine-tuning by human engineers and testing on “research audiences” to get the right result …

There’s a joke in there about “captive audience” but it’s probably tasteless.

Well, you did just make it. Own it, Prism.

Luckily for me, I suppose, everything I’m required to do is physically possible for a fairly normal person. Because it was done by fairly normal people. Well, at least, people the audience isn’t expected to believe have superpowers.

And of course they’ve embellished things, but the script does stay remarkably close to actual events.

I reach the gym. The cameras recognize me and open the doors for me.

I like Sidra, the new trainer they’ve brought in. She gives me a knowing look when I say that I’m late because I had a meeting with Carl, but doesn’t comment. She gets right down to business, as usual.

“Is there anything in particular you want to work on?”

“The jump.”

She has me doing actual long jump training, though I suppose I could call it retro long jump training now that profitable athletic events are almost entirely the domain of augletes.

She shakes her head. “You already have that almost perfect. It’s your combat you need to focus on. You can practice the jump at the end, as a treat.”

 

* * *

 

As usual, I leave physical training feeling a lot better. It also helps that there's now a slight breeze.

I turn my phone on and see a message from Kieran. 

_I’m making aubergine parmigiana._

Sent only a few minutes ago. He knows my schedule and Sidra’s strict no-interruptions policy.

_Any for me?_ I write back.

_I’ll try to refrain from eating it all._

I send back a smile and a wink. No need to take a shuttle to the cafeteria.

I start walking in the direction of the apartments, then realize …

I get out my phone again. 

_Are you in your place or mine?_

_Yours._

_Ok._ Another smile.

He has entry permissions. Holovid doesn’t care about our private lives, but —

Okay, no — that may be the most foolish sentence I’ve ever thought in my life. Of course they care. The only reason I’m allowed to date Kieran at all is that after careful consideration and probably some workshopping, they decided a relationship with him fit my image at this stage of my career. 

I did choose him myself, though. They’re not that gross. At least not to me.

What I meant is that they don’t care how much sex we have, but they insist that all their stars keep their own apartments and not move in together. I can’t blame them for that. There’s enough drama going on around here as it is.

So sometimes we sleep at his place, sometimes at mine. We try to make sure we cook about equally.

I come out of the shade of the gym complex and decide to go through the Promenade so I can use the skyway over the boulevard. I pass through a line of palms and notice, as always, the dramatic increase in the number of cameras. Pointing to cover all angles. They don’t try to hide them. We all know what the Promenade is for. 

I do think it’s an improvement on having paparazzi stalk your every move. Some aspects of the past horrify me. I don’t know how people could live like that. Nowadays you’ll only be chased by people with cameras if Holovid has carefully arranged for it to happen as a stunt.

I’m fully aware of the downsides, of course. Of one corp controlling the entire media. Well, except for the media controlled by the other three corps. Of course.

The Promenade building was designed by somebody famous whose name I can’t remember, and is a rippling, mirrored mass. Walking toward it is disorienting until you get used to it. As I approach, amid the thousand reflections of my own face, words appear. In a special frosted glass, only slightly different from the rest of the surface, so that you can only read the words for a moment before they disappear as your angle changes.

_La percepción es todo._

And there, flashing prismatic for a moment, in English. _Perception is everything._

They aren’t subtle, though they might try to claim they’re ironic.

_Die Vorstellung ist alles. La perception est tout._ What I know is the same thing in Chinese and Japanese and Arabic and various other scripts, interspersed in a no doubt artistic way. _La percezione è tutto._

Yes, there it is in Kiswahili. _Mtazamo ni kila kitu._ Though that could also mean “attitude is everything”. I think. I grew up in Nairobi speaking English at home — daughter of a Kenyan man and a Black English woman — but my parents sent me to a bilingual Kiswahili school. It was my father’s doing. At the time I thought he was old-fashioned. Well, he was, and still is, but that isn’t the point. The point is that … I said some foolish things, more than once, about everyone having real-time translation apps anyway. Well, not everyone — but actually, yes, even most of the poor. But my father had grown up without those apps …

A particularly bright spark of _Opfattelsen er alting_ hits me in the eyes, and I come back to the present. 

Because all of that life ended when I was fourteen. It was a shock to me at the time — after everything my parents had taught me — that practically the minute the Resource Wars were over they moved to California to restart their careers. But that is another thing I understand now. You have to look after yourself, and it’s not like refusing to work for Holovid — for FTM — would have made a difference.

Well, anyway. I was never exactly top of the class in Kiswahili. Languages aren’t one of my talents. Accents, yes, but not languages.

I could scan the wall with my phone, of course, but there’s no point. I already know what it says. About a hundred times over.

Two shadows pass over the pavement and I glance up automatically, even though I already know what’s there. Drones. The roaming ones on unpredictable paths. They aren’t cameras. They’re there to protect us. They really are. 

Not from Sankaku; there’s a treaty that puts the media off-limits. They’re here to protect us from the people of L.A. There is a very small but significant percentage who would blow us up if they could. And a much larger percentage who, completely understandably, hate us.

Us?

I’m walking so fast that the doors almost don’t slide open in time for me. Really, _that_ ’s the tech they can’t …

Silence hits me as I enter the Promenade, an actually palpable feeling of silence, though not because the building is quiet. Far from it. It’s full — well, about half-full, at this time of day — of my fellow Holovid actors, engaging in _totally spontaneous_ conversations. Just candidly going about their lives — eating food — or at least with food posed near them — or chilling on chairs near fountains. Or near screens, sometimes watching themselves. And everywhere, gently curving walls and half-walls and special pillars control the sound, re-direct it so you can hear your own conversations clearly but from any distance everything is remarkably quiet. It means that the mics can pick up everything with exceptional sound quality.

Everyone’s required to spend a certain amount of time here, though I’ve been given an exception for the next few months because of my more-intense-than-usual schedule. They really seem to be rushing this new vid. But still, it might slightly help my standing with Holovid to be seen walking through. And I still think it’s better than paparazzi.

I slow down to navigate the crowd. Walk casual. 

There’s Kara, there’s Maristela …

I sidle past an apparently abandoned table containing an apparently untouched fruit salad and resist the urge to snag a grape or two. That would almost certainly attract attention. And you really can’t know where it’s been. And I can afford as much fruit as I want.

If Kieran’s using fresh vegetables, he probably went to the market today. He likes doing that.

_There’s a reason they_ …

Ah, yes — there’s Clementine and Shay-Shay, having a staged argument. I knew they were about due for one. High overhead, cameras pivot slightly to track their dramatic movements. That’s all done with AI.

I walk by and ignore them —which, because Clementine is friends with Makinney, might actually get picked up on and analyzed by _Climb Up!_ or _Extravagancia._

Holovid has already planted the seeds.

I make it to the skyway without having to dodge too many people. There is one group of tourists in the corner — carefully chaperoned, of course — but they’re focused on bigger stars than me. They paid a lot of money for this fifteen minutes of “access.” Of course, as I cross the skyway I see several other groups down below on the sidewalk. They would have paid less. One group is pointing, excited — but not at me. Ah. Kwaku Afoakwah is crossing the skyway from the other direction. Like me, he walks as though he’s completely unaware.

I nod to him slightly. He nods back. I’m going to be working with him soon. 

I do feel some relief as soon as I’m back on the ground. Now there’s a thick wall between me and the boulevard, blocking out most of the sound, and there are no tourists allowed here. At this time of day, anyway. Also, the breeze is now stronger. I pass through the security gate into the residential area. I still have a fair ways to walk. This whole place was designed with far too many expansive tributes to palm tree irrigation technology. I could have taken the shuttle, but I like the walk. I would like walking even if it didn’t help with my weight targets. 

Holovid hasn’t said anything yet about how my training is making me more muscular. And they’re undoubtedly aware, so that must mean they approve.

Yes, there are a thousand annoyances, a thousand ways you’re constantly aware of them. But as I walk, my muscles sore from Sidra’s training, all I feel is energy flowing through my body, and all I can think of is _look at me._ Look at my career. And at my second career that I’m about to launch, my career as a singer. I got Holovid to agree to that — which was no small feat, because they don’t do things by halves. I either have no singing career, or they pour their whole machine into me. This song — still untitled — is meant as a viral breakout; the album will come out a few months after that. They have songs they want me to sing — I don’t care — I will sing them — I am pouring myself into this one song. Yes, I realize, to a maybe unhealthy degree. But I don’t care. I have something to say; I will say it. Even if it comes out in only a half-measure …

But look at where I am. I, Prism. Esther Martins. After a whole bunch of shitty roles, then some half-decent ones, then some shitty comedies …

Okay, they were not just popular but fairly well-reviewed. I still think they’re shitty. Though maybe I’m just tired of working with Jonathon Sago.

And now, Prism, right now … step back from the frustrations of working with Carl. And Victor. And Soren. And Javier. And the Sago-Frink team. I can handle all of them. I’m twenty-four. Still young, even by Holovid standards. Still young, even given that medical technology has extended lifespans but hasn’t expanded the lifecycles of actresses as much as you’d think. But I’m young. And I’ve just landed a major role where I’m playing a total badass.

Who, okay, is also one of the most reviled figures of the twenty-first century. 

Well, she is when the corps aren’t trying to erase her name from existence. I swear, they change their messaging tactics on her more often than FTM changes its logos. Presumably they were afraid that any visibility for her at all would create sympathy, but that doesn’t seem to be a concern now. Esteban Villegas, the director, who I actually like, had a long meeting with me last week about portraying her. They’re going for sympathetic — up to a point — and nuanced. Esteban had some genuinely fascinating things to say, and assigned me to watch a vintage interview with Alec Guinness.

It is too bad that they’ll execute me, of course. In the vid, that is. My character. The scene is going to be recorded in real time and be thirty minutes long, according to the latest script. I’m not looking forward to those recording days. But I suppose that’s the price to pay for a role like this.

 

* * *

 

The food smells amazing, and Kieran has a surprise for me other than the food — I can tell. For an extremely good actor he’s remarkably shit at concealing anything real. I mean that he can pretend to be someone else with no trouble at all, but ask him to hide who _he_ is — to hide what Kieran MacGavin is thinking or feeling — and it’s like he doesn’t even know how to try. I don’t mean he’s emotional, just … transparent. And I can tell he has some big secret up his sleeve, something for me, something he thinks will make me happy. 

But I don’t show it; I play along, eating the parmigiana, drinking the wine, watching _Mostly the News With Chris and Hunter_ on the holoprojector. We don’t ask about each other’s days. We’re both happier if we don’t talk about work.

When he does get to it, it comes out in a rush. “Remember how I recorded your combat lesson? When you were learning the jump, and the other stuff? How I asked you?”

“Yes.” That was a few weeks ago. He came by during my physical training one day and was so impressed that he asked if he could record a vid of me on his phone. Sidra didn’t mind as long as he didn’t get in the way. I didn’t mind, though at the time I thought it was almost funny how blown away he seemed. My training is no different from what a lot of my fellow actors do.

But then I watched the vid afterwards and saw that I was pretty damn impressive. And I’ve got better at the jump since then.

“I was in a meeting today with Allan and Victor — Victor Thornton — and they want to release it. As publicity. For the film.”

Kieran still says _film_. I’d say it’s a British thing but I’m not overwhelmingly Americanized myself and I still think it sounds ridiculously old-fashioned. Just say _vid_ , Kieran.

“Pre-publicity. Well, maybe pre-pre-publicity.” He laughs nervously. “I know I should have asked you first — I just meant to float the idea — but they got on board so quickly.” He takes a deep breath. “We might still be able to stop it, if you really want.”

Now _I_ almost laugh.

“Kieran, I’m surrounded by cameras for ninety percent of my life.”

Okay, not quite true, since there are none of their cameras in this apartment. Probably not even strictly true for my _waking_ life. But pretty close, and anyway …

“I don’t mind,” I say. “Though you should have asked me first.”

He smiles, relieved. “I’m sorry. But you know what they’re like.”

“Yes. But this is fine. Great, actually. Everyone will see me being awesome.”

“Yes, they will.” He beams at me. “And don’t worry — they’re going to manage the leak so it goes to one of the better outlets, not something like P-Expo. I was worried about that, so I brought it up. And they agreed. They really understood that. They’re going to handle everything so it drops for maximum impact. And with the least disruption for you.”

Okay, slow down, Kieran. You’re talking like something that’s entirely to their benefit is a concession they gave you.

Well, yes. They do get you thinking like that.

Oh, Kieran. I know you’re not naive; you’re a few years older than me — have been in this business longer than I have — and you had parents like mine. Well, you’re White and Scottish, so not exactly like mine. But parents who could remember where they — well, not where _they_ came from, but where their ancestors came from.

We’re both the children of minor celebrities, you and I. Celebrities, the new … 

Well, no. We’re not even the new upper class. We’re the toys of the new upper class. 

Which mostly isn’t all that new.

Anyway, Kieran, you’re not sheltered. But sometimes you’re just too _good_ …

“Prism? Are you sure you’re okay with it?”

I realize that I’ve been staring into space. I bring myself back to him. “Yes, yes. It’s great. I was just … I guess I’m just a bit overwhelmed by the pace of things.”

“Oh. Is there anything I can do — do you want to be alone?”

“No,” I say. “Not right now.”

And I open my arms to him.

 

* * *

 

Later that night, I sit on the balcony and open the lyrics doc again. I stare down at the words, ignoring Carl’s notes all over them. 

> _maybe I should never have trusted you_
> 
> _but you’ve been in my life since what feels like the beginning of time_

Do I want that bit in there at all? It’s not the length of the line that’s the issue — the way I plan to sing it, it will work — it’s whether it says what I want it to say. And even if it does … if that will come across to anyone else … if anyone hearing it will hear the same thing …

I can get too much in my own head sometimes …

Maybe it’s because I’m trying to work in something that can plausibly sound like it’s about the feud. Something ambiguous enough to satisfy them.

Maybe that’s what’s causing the problem. Maybe this will never work.

> _and I thought you were helping, I thought you’d approve_

I add _when you told me_

— Then what? _You told me … to …?_ To what?

I’m not sure how to go on, and delete it.

Carl will be able to see that I deleted that. 

I will need to explain if I turn off Track Changes. Probably.

I go to start a new doc, then stop. Instead, I open up my workout diary, create a new entry — on a day a year in the future — and start typing in the space there. I’ll drag words into the main doc as needed. Of course they could still find what I’m typing here if they go looking for it, but I’ll give them no reason to.

> _I reject the idea there’s a right way to shine_
> 
> _but I see you trying to grab my light_

Ugh, no. Yes, but no. Maybe I could get away with it if this was teen pop, but no.

With a swipe of my finger I strike it through but don’t delete it.

Then I put my phone away. That’s enough for tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

“Sorry,” says Tomás, my driver.

“It's okay,” I tell him.

I actually have no idea what he said before that — it was so thoroughly under his breath — but it was presumably something fairly profane.

I have no idea what’s still holding us up. I’ve already been scanned. And the car, and Tomás, and the whole team by now, if they’re doing things as usual. But there seems to be some delay at the head of the line.

I could check in with Javier on my phone, but I don’t want to. I stare out the window at the desert. 

This is only the second day of this, and there are two more weeks to go. Then we’re going to Istanbul for some location work. Istanbul will almost certainly be cooler. Of course, I would say Central Australia would be cooler than this, but we all know it’s not so that would be in poor taste.

Anyway, they’ve decided it’s worth it to send us to Istanbul for a handful of scenes that I strongly suspect won’t even make the final cut — all the action at the hotel, interior and exterior, is being done in-studio — but they’ve got southern California playing both Greece and China. The latter is probably understandable given the political situation — though they could get permission from Sankaku if it was really important. Possibly it would involve some trade-offs. But all four corps have a mutual understanding that war is one thing but the entertainment industry …

… makes the world go round?

Somebody’s staring at me. Two soldiers. Stopped by our car. They’re talking to each other. Not approaching any closer. I think they may have been just walking by. I realize I may have been staring at them first. That my eyes may have focused on them, inadvertently, while I was letting my attention drift out over the desert. I pretend to be checking my phone.

They’re regular FTM soldiers, though they have the enhanced armour that can create a bubble shield around them. That seems like overkill out here, especially as the tech still requires a rather bulky backpack-like thing.

_ It’s understandable they look pissed off, Prism. They’re out in the heat. You’re not. You’re in an air-conditioned car. _

The sun out there is so bright and the rocks are so red that I feel hot — but I’m not. I feel thirsty because of the air conditioning. That is not a real problem to have.

But my voice is important. I wait until the soldiers have walked away before I drink from my water bottle.

We start moving, finally. We crawl past the fence and the turrets and the other fence. It’s been years since there’s been any combat on the West Coast and they’re still maintaining the militarized zone. But I know that it’s not just for show. An annoyed voice in me whispers that it is, every time we go through one of these checkpoints, but I know that voice is only about ten percent right. The fighting between Sankaku and FTM was brutal for a while, and still is in parts of the Pacific. It could come back to us here, any day, even if it seems unlikely right now.

But Kelfried & Odin getting involved in the Pacific does seem to have actually cooled things down, even if the CEO only did it because he wanted Hawaiʻi. That last bit probably isn’t true. They know what they’re doing.

We’re through the last gate now. The windows darken. They’re programmed to go transparent near the checkpoint, for security reasons. We speed up. And then we slow down again for a road crew.

Oh, yes. I got a text about this. This highway was getting a bit rough in places. I noticed it yesterday. Though not so bad that it couldn’t have waited until autumn at least. But hey, not my decision.

There are some soldiers guarding the road crew, too. Less armoured, but still with big guns. This is normal. I am not being reminded of the Resource Wars. Which I was sheltered from anyway.

In that I experienced them through screens.

The fighting that’s happening now is nothing, really. Oh, they’ve never shied away from calling it war — it’s a useful word for one corp to use against another — but compared to the Resource Wars, it’s just a little local … competition.

Unless it’s putting down a rebellion.

There — there’s a few of the road crew, coming into view as we crawl past a line of equipment.

_And even the Resource Wars were relatively low casualty for their scale …_

They’re wearing grey jumpsuits. Are they prisoners? No — they can’t be. FTM doesn’t use prisoners for anything public. Stealing jobs and all that. And that colour is actually not so much grey as a faded purple that was probably FTM magenta at one point. Yes, there are the words _Factory To Market Wholesalers_ just barely visible on the back above the logo. The old logo. Of course, that doesn't in itself rule out prisoners, but they use orange for that. Right. Even though that’s Plastech’s colour.

No, these are people who are lucky. They have a job. 

Well, no, it’s not luck. It’s planning. There’s a reason Tomás is in this car with me and it’s definitely not a lack of technology. Of course, he’s doing very little of the actual driving and is really there as extra security for me, but if they called him that they’d have to pay him more. 

Well, no. They don’t _have_ to do anything.

FTM, Plastech, K&O, Sankaku. Magenta, orange, white, blue.

And the doors, of course. He always opens the car doors. Even though I could do it with a wave of my hand.

 

* * *

 

“Olivia, darling. You know I trust you more than anyone else in the world. But …”

“You can tell me, Phan. This will never succeed if we’re not honest with each other.”

“I know. And _I_ certainly know a thing or two about succeeding on sheer force of ambition. I've always admired you for the ways you're like me." She laughs, brittlely. "But when I look at you now, Olivia, I see … something different. Maybe it’s been there since the war broke out … yes, I can see that now …”

“We will win this, Phan.”

“I know. And … it’s that. Right there. It’s how certain you sound when you say it. And … and … you were always strong. Always certain. But something’s changed … now that you’re the one in charge. Of us. Of the PEIA. There is something there that wasn’t there before … even during all those years of fighting …”

“Years … yes.” I make the last word almost hiss.

“But no, no …” She shakes her head, almost winces. ”It’s not like something new is there. It’s like something’s been cut away. Barriers, of a sort. It’s … it’s … it’s like there are no steps in your mind between _now_ and _win_.”

I’ve been paired with a very good actor.

I am a very good actor.

“I would say you’re being clever, but it’s true. You understand my mind, Phan. Or you did.” I pause. I breathe exactly right, not quite a sigh. “You understand ... what was in my mind once. But now … you want to know another secret?”

“Yes?” Just the right amount of hesitancy.

“I don’t know, Phan. Sometimes I don’t know.” I pause, hang my head, place my head in my hands. “There are steps in my mind, I can see them one by one. But they move constantly, and … if I could just arrange them, if they would only stand still for _just one moment_ , if they would stop being always … one step ahead …”

“Olivia … I don’t understand you, sometimes.”

“One step ahead. Well, that’s capital, isn’t it?”

I laugh. Olivia appreciates her own joke.

_We expect people to get a joke about capital moving faster than labor? – VT_

_Don’t underestimate people. And within five minutes of release someone will have made a vid about it. – EV_

_Explaining the “secret references”. Gotcha. – VT_

“But Olivia … I know you’ll see us through this. _You_ understand these things. _I_ don’t bother.” She tosses her head. “But I …”

She goes to reach out her hand to me — then stops — hesitation visible — and brushes her own hair back instead. Keeps her hand there, by her ear.

You would think the fact that said hair is an aggressively neon pink would detract from the scene, but it doesn’t. Not the way Min does it. And Min told me, during a break, that she was glad to be able to dye her hair. Normally the roles she gets don’t let her do anything adventurous with it.

“You could understand, if you wanted to. I have never kept anything from you, Phan.”

That hair is true to the real person Min’s character is based on. Collette Phan. Who was quite a character by all accounts.

“I know, I know.”

How did an ex-Augment Games star — an Augment Games _diva_ — moderately famous and on track with a long list of sponsorships, end up working for the Pan-Euro Infosec Agency? I mean, I have all the basic facts and I could find out more if I wanted to, but _why …_

Well, _her_ motivation isn’t the one I have to worry about.

“All I’m asking from you is loyalty, Phan. Loyalty and trust. Simple trust. Trust in me. Trust in human nature.”

I’m wearing a wig to make things easier for the holotech. Or rather, one of several wigs, depending on how old Olivia is in the scene we’re shooting at the time. I’ll grow my hair back out after we’re done. Probably. Depends on my next role.

“Promise me, Phan. Promise me this. I’d do the same to you.”

Right now the wig is grey, shading to white. Olivia is not quite fifty. That is also true to life.

“I … I will never leave you … Gladstone.”

“Not quite the phrasing I was expecting."

Min draws back. I lean forward. “But for what it’s worth, I will never leave you … Collette.” I look past her, not at her, as though at something far distant. “And I will never, ever, ever say — will never let it be said — that if I can’t beat them I will join them.”

“Cut.”

It’s Yvon speaking. He has been increasingly taking over from Esteban.

“This isn’t working. We all need a break. Back in fifteen.”

His voice is calm but he practically storms off. He’s new. He’ll soon learn not to do that in this heat.

No idea what it is that he thinks isn’t working. I’m sure we’ll find out eventually. I saunter away and switch off my holorig, ignoring the reactions from those around me as the projection drops away in a thousand tiny flashes of light. 

Seriously, people, you are surrounded by this technology. Get used to it.

And I know you don’t react that much when a blond White woman turns into a brown-haired White woman. 

Not like that. Or try to hide it — unsuccessfully — like that.

I reach the shade. The trailers are surrounded by a forest of umbrellas. A White woman — Sam? Ann? — in a maxi dress and wide-brimmed hat approaches me to touch up my makeup.

Holorigs have limits. They don’t change your basic body type, and haven’t entirely eliminated the need for makeup. In live performance, makeup can be the one thing that saves you from the uncanny valley — thought that’s not too much of a problem now, not like in the 50s when they almost destroyed the reputation of the technology by bringing it out too soon. 

The very tail end of the 50s, after the Resource Wars were over, after the San Francisco Accord was signed …

But anyway, for recordings, they still like a “smooth” base because it cuts down on post-processing.

And despite the snark you still see around, holotech is only improved by good acting, and good acting by holotech. Seriously, it’s not like lip-synching _at all_ …

“Close your eyes.”

I do so and tilt my head. Anti-sweat sealant. A miracle, if you also have access to the med tech to prevent acne.

She dabs away the excess and is done with me, and I walk off to a different chair, also in the shade. Everything that can be is in the shade here.

I can feel the heat of the holorig around my waist — they take quite a bit of power to run, and the cooling technology is getting better all the time but still isn’t perfect. But because it’s a different heat from the dry desert air, it’s oddly almost refreshing. Like how drinking hot tea on a hot day can actually feel good.

Only a few years ago you could only use them for about a minute at a time before they needed a cooldown. 

Yes, the technology is amazing. 

It just isn’t a solution to everything, _Holovid_.

They don’t need to use it like this. Didn’t have to make me White for this. Though thank fucking God they’re not …

But it’s still their usual “holotech means we don’t have to see race” bullshit.

Well, it did mean that I got the part — but no — no — they could have race-bent it. Told the story of an alternate-universe Olivia Gladstone. Which is what they’re doing anyway.

I do in fact trust their scriptwriters with that. Probably. If they’d got Ishola or Kenneth on board.

And you know, if it was a choice between my getting the part and … 

… but there’s no possible ending to that sentence other than “Holovid being completely different”, so it’s not worth thinking about.

They have at least managed to avoid anything actively insulting with this one, so I’m taking what I’ve got and throwing myself into the role.

I scratch an itch on my leg, being careful to not disturb the electrodes there. I have a whole army of them on me, concealed beneath my clothes and hair.

They’re trying a bunch of new tech on this, which means we spend far more time watching technicians fiddle around than we do recording. It does make things … more than usually draining.

Especially outdoors like this. It was much better in the studio. 

The jump was one of the first scenes we shot there. Olivia Gladstone’s jump from the fifth floor of the Istanbul Hotel, across the narrow street to the building opposite. Her great leap away from the pursuing guards after her failed assassination of the most powerful corporate leaders in the world. That jump is entirely true to life, except that in reality her bid for freedom worked and in the vid they have her re-captured shortly after.

And for the vid they have made the gap wider, and shot it so it looks higher up. I mean, I was less than a metre above the floor when I did it, but they set up the camera angles so that when they add in the CGI, it’ll look like a very high five storeys.

Anyway, it was still quite a feat in reality. And shooting that scene was actually fun. And almost nothing went wrong with the tech.

And now it’s over. So much preparation for that jump, so much training — so much time learning technique and practicing it again and again — and now it’s over. Well, it’s possible I might have to come back to it in pick-ups, but unlikely. They were very satisfied with the recordings for that scene.

So it’s out of my hands.

Olivia — I’ve been thinking of her as “Olivia”, rather than “Gladstone”, to help me get into her head — made the jump with the help of any extremely powerful illegal stim. Of course I’m not using any chemical assistance — that’s what my training was for — but miming stabbing myself in the thigh with a prop stim, screaming as I did so, letting my face show all my emotions — Esteban had me dial it back in some takes but he seemed extremely pleased with that day’s results — that felt good.

But it’s over. It was over two weeks ago, and now we’re doing the tedious emotional bits.

Well, they’re not really tedious; they’re quite well-written — but we’re doing so many takes, and might have to do them again if the neural imprints don’t come out to the engineers’ satisfaction …

A senso this vivid and this long is unprecedented. Holovid is banking a lot on _The Istanbul Four_. 

Or rather, FTM is banking a lot on it. Or cares about it a lot for some reason. There have been very detailed directives coming from higher up — Yvon all but confirmed it the other day.

The corps haven’t tried to hide the fact that Olivia Gladstone, unlike her co-conspirators, escaped. Or at least, they haven’t tried to hide it consistently. And even when they were apparently trying to pretend that history began in 2058, it wasn’t hard to find the original footage on SubNet. I may have somewhat better tech skills than most people but … seriously, it wasn’t hard.

But there has been a change visible recently. They’re focusing more on _stories_.

In a few years’ time people will have replaced their memories of watching the news with memories of watching _The Istanbul Four_.

I stare at the sand at my feet.

Maybe what I’m doing … maybe it will inspire people to … 

Or maybe it will distract them.

Maybe that’s all my music will do …

Maybe my voice, blasted through the headphones of teens, will even burn off frustration and prevent a riot.

And maybe that will save lives.

 

No. No. 

You bastards are not getting me to think like that.

 

But still, I’m fighting to launch my _singing career_ …

Because that’s the only thing I can fight for, now.

 

“Prism. Prism.”

Javier is looking down at me. He has a weird thing where he’ll use my stage name as long as we’re on-set but never off.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“You seem tired.”

“I’m resting. I’m between takes.”

“Make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Your makeup is fine, but I can see sweat on your neck.”

He hands me a large bottle of water and gestures generously towards the cooler with the electrolyte gelfoams. About hydration, Javier is great.

“It is the heat,” I say, knowing he won’t leave until he gets the confirmation he wants that something was wrong with me. “And the role. It is rather intense, getting into the …”

Javier walks away with a smile — the moment he’s got what he wanted, he has no time for the bemusing ways of actresses.

I down the water bottle in one go and have to pee urgently twenty minutes later, which I stop the take for. Loudly.

And then I give them some fucking amazing work.

 

* * *

 

> _here I stand_
> 
> _I am taking my crystal out of your hands_

I’ve decided I like that bit now, which is good because they love it.

I’m still fighting them over “you try to control me because you envy” — I still don’t want to use it and they do — and I do seem to be winning there. 

> _you’re back there trying to calibrate the prisms_
> 
> _and I’m out here grabbing my light_

No. 

> _I see you trying to direct my light_

Ugh, I keep coming back to that. And it feels closer to what I want to say, but I just can’t make it _work_. Don’t know what comes next …

In the end we mutually agree to take that bit out anyway. Though for different reasons. We aren’t on the same page at all. But I find I don’t actually disagree with Carl when he pronounces our meeting a success.

Maybe I just need to wait until they let me be clearer. There is the future for that.

 

* * *

 

“If I thought for a moment that my life’s work had been in vain, if I thought for a moment that I had ever failed to serve the people, if I thought for a moment I had not made people’s lives better — then, yes, I would surrender.”

Sixty-three, she’d be sixty-three, so it’s extremely likely she’s still alive. In reality, I mean. Today. From an age perspective, at least.

“So tell, me, Draco, is this the moment? Tell, me, Cygne — is this the moment when we give up on the concept of government and let the pursuit of profit win?” 

But — well, okay, if the corps knew for sure she was dead we would fucking know — but if she isn’t dead — how could she … could anyone really have stayed hidden for —

“Is this the moment where we give up on all we’ve done? On all we’ve done for the people? Where we decide their lives aren’t worth improving? Where we give into the corps’ heartless science? Tell me, Mossman, is it? You, Mossman … Derek. Derek, you who’ve been with me from the beginning, from the youngest days of the PEIA … you who’ve seen all my struggles — is this that moment?”

_If they’d actually had a body at any point …_ Damn. Focus, Prism. They’ve found these new neural recorders are very sensitive. The slightest lack of concentration can throw off the results. Oh well, I know we’ll be doing this scene again anyway.

“And tell me, Phan. You, Phan, standing there with weapons at your belt and doubt in your eyes — is this the moment? Because it may be for you” —I pull out my gun — “but it is not for me. And Phan, you’re not coming with us.”

“I —” Min, on Yvon’s direction, is trying it this time with her lip trembling, though I liked the more stoic ones better.

“Don’t speak. Don’t say what you’re about to say. I can’t let you. Can’t let you do what you’re about to do. I know you haven’t done it yet, but you’re a breath away. Doubt … doubt I could allow … but never, never, the seeds of impending betrayal. I’m sorry, Collette. I’m sorry … that your heart wasn’t strong enough.”

I pull the trigger. Min falls, perfectly on time. Yvon is insistent they’ll be using the long shot for this, though that could change tomorrow.

“From now on, this is the Istanbul Four, not the Istanbul Five. Any further questions?”

 

* * *

 

“And this only raises further questions, doesn’t it, Chris?”

“Absolutely, Hunter. As we know, what little Kwaku Afoakwah had said to the press up to this point —” 

“Which wasn’t much —”

“No, but it seemed to indicate support for Prism over Makinney in this matter, didn’t it? But in light of —”

I shut the holoprojector off. This would be funny if it weren’t so … so …

… so what?

So what. That’s exactly it. I should find this funny, but I just don’t care.

Someone leaked a pic of me and Kwaku standing within a few meters of each other on set looking completely neutral towards each other. The press are using words like “tiff” and “acrimony” and “frosty”.

There may be a grain of truth to the last one. I do get a kind of vibe that Kwaku doesn’t particularly like me. He mostly avoids me between scenes. I have no idea if this has anything to do with the “feud” — he is friends in real life with most of the people involved, especially Adrienne and … well, actually, all the White women in that circle — and it doesn’t matter. He acts well opposite me. He’s polite if we have to interact outside of that.

I have no idea what else, if anything, is going on with him, and that’s fine.

He’s playing Derek Mossman. Who was indeed Black in real life. At least they managed to not do anything offensive there. 

Part of me feels like I should be paying more attention to the “feud”, but part of me is saying that I’ve got along fine so far without doing so. Holovid keeps me briefed, has their plan — but that pic wasn’t actually part of it — they can’t completely control the media — well, they can — they could have stopped the pic from getting out — but they didn’t orchestrate the release — at least I think …

And of course it can be hard to tell where one of the other corps might be getting involved …

Not now, Prism. You’ve had a long day. You should be relaxing.

It is still important that I not screw this up. I know that. The feud has gone exactly to their satisfaction so far, but any slip-up and Holovid might decide to … support me less. They’re not going to abandon _The Istanbul Four_ at this point, but my singing career could still be on the line. Even though Carl is now waxing enthusiastic about my voice’s potential. Even though my press is growing exactly as planned. Even though the hype for _The Istanbul Four_ has completely overshadowed Sankaku-ME’s latest animated vid series, which is no doubt pissing off Sankaku. Even though my “leaked” training vid has generated more views than even Kieran could have dreamed. I still can’t count on anything. I still have to do my part. Learn the lines-that-aren’t-lines they give me for the feud.

It’s just that in terms of how much mental effort I give to _this_  versus how much I give to Olivia, I can afford to let the percentages be about one versus ninety-nine.

Suddenly feeling better, I turn the holo back on.

“ … ha ha ha.”

“Yeah, some people need to chill out, don’t they, Chris?”

“Yeah, we’re certainly not talking about a _conspiracy_ here. Sometimes body language is just body language. Put down your phones, babies.”

“But seriously, if you compare this pic here with the one taken on the 25th, well …”

“It does tell a _story_ , doesn’t it, Hunter?”

They’re still talking about me. I don’t change the channel. This time, I can see it with distance. It is funny. It’s not really me they’re talking about at all, after all, not Prism, not Esther, but a tiny spark of Prism, a sparkle like one thrown off by a malfunctioning holorig, gone in a second, your eye can’t even follow it …

Ugh … maybe I am tired. I should go to bed.

But for a few more minutes, I’ll let this wash over me. Harmlessly. Smoothly. If I need to react to it, Holovid will tell me.

 

* * *

 

Fuck. Fuck. 

This bit wasn’t in any of the earlier scripts.

Fuck.

“Derek … you’re Black. And I, as a White woman, will not be responsible for your death. When it happens, I want you far away from the action. I want you in the helicopter, acting as operator. Out of danger.”

“Hey, I really appreciate it, girl.”

_Use body language._ That’s what the note says. No indication who added it, but someone highlighted it.

“And hey, girl, you can tell me. Why you really want me in that helicopter. Is it really because of my super-leet tech skills, or is it because you wanna think of me up there … looking down on ya?”

“I will not be responsible for your death.”

“Okay, okay, I know it’s the super-leet tech skills. Not to mention it’s how I’m _on_ _fire_ as an _operator_.”

“I will not be responsible for your death.”

 

_Kieran, it’s not you, it’s work. I just need a few days to myself._

 

* * *

 

I dodge, duck, roll, dodge again. And again.

They’ll add the plasma blasts in post.

“Fine, corporate bastard! I get the point!”

Okay, this is fun again.

 

* * *

 

“‘Prism’. Yes.” Carl smiles. “Yes, I like it. I wasn’t feeling it at first, but it works.”

That’s the name we’ve settled on for my song. We took days. 

Yes, we’re going with self-titled.

Well, it wasn’t solid days of talking about it. But a lot of hours, spread out over about a week. Where we could fit it in around my time on-set.

Next week will be calmer.

We considered other options. 

“Diamond Cut Diamond”

“Crystal”

“Prisms” — yes, we talked a lot about the presence or absence of that _s_ —

“Cut”

“Reflection”

“Reflections” — ditto about the _s_ — 

— and “Sparkle”.

I think that was it. The main ones. But it’s going to be “Prism”.

I’m not saying we considered “Sparkle” for long. Not even Carl.

 

* * *

 

“No, I was never technically elected, but I am representing the people now. I am serving them. I’m serving their best interests, whether they know it or not.”

“Yes, Gladstone, but we all know you can’t say it like that. Now why don’t we go over —

“They’re not my serfs, I’m their servant. Why can’t they understand that?”

“They will, Gladstone. When you’ve won.”

“After all I’ve done to save them, after all I’ve done for their safety …”

“Yes, of —”

“When power is in my hands, it’s in theirs …”

“Yes, yes …”

“ … and why, why can’t they understand that it’s all about power?”

“Yes, I’m …”

“Stop saying yes! Stop saying yes! But while we’re at it, yes! Yes! Yes, yes, I have treated people as pawns. And yes, yes, it was all for their own good. Someone is always playing chess with them, and why _shouldn’t_ it be me? It’s not my fault that they’re too —”

Silence. All of my fellow actors are very good at conveying silence.

I sigh. Olivia brings herself under control. “But that doesn’t matter. We keep fighting. We fight another day.”

“Cut. Good. Very good.” Yvon gives me one of his thin smiles. “We’ll do it again. Your accent … was maybe slipping just a bit, there?”

I don’t think it was, but I say, “Got it.”

And they haven’t been that strict about getting Kwaku as Derek to sound authentically Mancunian. But never mind. _I_ sound good. All of my British accents sound completely natural.

Just a little detail — and in this case entirely true to life — but they’re using it.

 

* * *

 

I put down my phone. I’m now up-to-date on what I said to Makinney. And to Adrienne, who has become somewhat more involved with this than what was — I stop myself from thinking _what_ _was in the script_ — but no, fuck it, it _was_ a script, and Adrienne’s gone slightly off it, but it’s making buzz and Holovid couldn’t be happier …

Wouldn’t be that happy if it was _me_ getting creative, but of course Adrienne is White, and …

And anyway, I am in fact glad that they’re handling ninety-nine percent of my social media for me. A combination of Javier and an AI. That is another thing Javier is good at.

Okay, not a real AI. Kieran is big on that distinction. He can be kind of annoying about it. Fine, Kieran, a bot.

 

* * *

 

“Go ahead. Kill him. Kill him and my team’s eliminated. Kill him and we’ve lost. Kill him if that’s how you think. And I know how you people think. Everything is taking with you. Everything is force.”

I pause.

“So … if you think this is freedom, take it. But ask yourself, what freedom is it, really? Do you have the freedom to be alive without working? The freedom to enjoy life? The freedom to discover who you really are, without your employer controlling your time, your appearance, your health? Can you not feel the lines of control wrapping around you, insidious? Can you imagine yourself without them?”

I step towards him, slowly, as I speak. The camera will follow me, I know. Follow me as I advance and he stands as if mesmerized. The audience will become aware, in one beautiful dawning moment, that I’m almost close enough to him to …

The man in the Plastech security guard uniform pulls the trigger. And Draco is down. We’ve already done a different version of this scene where Draco tries to escape on his own and is killed by a laser barrier — a version where it doesn’t look like the guard’s fault — but they probably won’t go with that one. They can afford to own it.

I scream. “You did this for _them!_ For your corporate masters!” 

He looks back at me, impassive.

“Don’t think for a minute they’d do the same for you! Don’t fool yourself! But I hope you enjoy whatever toys they give you. Your augments,  or your phones, or your nanofab-made luxuries. Or your latest-generation drugs.”

“Tech. Yes.” He speaks quietly. This is not one of the takes where he’s yelling. This is also, thank God, not one of the takes where he’s doing their idea of a working-class accent. I think they’ve given up on that. “Tech like the monitor next to my heart. The monitor that will let them know if you kill me.” 

He gestures, with the hand that isn’t the pointing the gun at me. His uniform is authentic to 2057, practical camouflage, not the gleaming white ones Plastech uses today.

“Which I do have because of my job, yes. As part of a bargain that _I_ made. Choose to make. This is what I chose to do with my life. And tech — do you want to talk about tech? Tech … like the artificial heart in my son. And in millions like him. Tech like —” he waves his free arm at the city around us. Or rather, where the CGI city will be. The skyscrapers and mega-screens, mixed with the old buildings of Istanbul in a way not entirely authentic to what it was actually like at the end of the Resource Wars, but not too far off either.

“I could go on,” he says, “but I won’t.” He steps closer to me, his gun not wavering. “You will always come up with some new abstraction to fool me with. Yes, I know how words work with you. Everything is words, bamboozling words. But I am a man concerned with practicalities. Practicalities mean people living or dying. And yes, I do know what freedom is.”

And I make a feint. He shoots. And he misses because at exactly that moment I dive sideways, somersault, and grab the plasma gun from Draco’s body.

“Practicalities? Don’t make me laugh.” I stand up, breathing heavily. That is mostly acting, because I have trained very hard for this. I have a weapon now, and aim. “You know, deep down, that you do not truly _have_ anything. You have an illusion of possession they allow you, and you say you would not throw it away for what seems like an even less substantial dream. But ask yourself, what do you really have of substance, right now? What hope can you possibly hope to have? Among all the things you can say you own, is one of them your soul?”

“So we’re playing the _guess what’s in my mind_ game, are we?” He has been stepping backwards as I approach him, but now stops. “Let me try. You’re thinking that the drone you’ve hacked should have come up behind me and killed me by now. And I may be just a simple guard, but I know about our newest counter-measures. Looks like your computer just wasn’t good enough.”

I’m sure no one in these situations ever has this much time to stand around talking. But this is storytelling.

“No!” I scream. And in my head I think, very clearly,

_ No! No! _

_ I ... _

_... am Olivia Gladstone ... _

_... and I do not ... _

_... face defeat! _

That’s the pièce de résistance. The technical achievement award-bait moment. The moment that cements senso tech as an art form. And out loud my scream ends in exactly the right pitch. 

Then ...

“Counter this!”

I throw the grenade. Flash grenade, the one I’d picked up off a guard’s body earlier. The trajectory as I throw it is perfect, a beautiful arc. I do not let myself be distracted by it, of course. I keep my eyes where the cameras need them.

“Cut. That was great, Prism, but — what is it?” Yvon turns around in mid-sentence. Someone is waving from the corner with all the tech.

“There was a glitch in the sensors on her right arm. We need the throw again, just the throw.” It’s … Marco? Yes, Marco. He’s the one who’s always completely matter-of-fact no matter how Yvon gets.

“Fucking shit.” Yvon says nothing more, but stares sulkily as Marco checks the electrodes on my arm. And as Marco and the other technicians confer. And spend five minutes doing something with the tech on their end. And as I do the throw again.

And again. And again.

“Sorry.” Marco does not sound particularly apologetic. “The neural-kinesthetic imprint just isn’t coming out the same as before. It’s only slightly off — ”

“Fuck.”

“— and we might be able to work around it in post.”

“Fuck.”

“Possibly it’s because she’s got less adrenaline flowing now than in the earlier takes.”

“Can she take a stim?”

“No, Yvon.” This is not Marco’s first time saying this. “That completely wrecks the data.”

“Fine. Prism, take fifteen minutes, eat something, then we start again from the top. And make sure you are in exactly the same frame of mind as you were before.”

“Gotcha.”

 

* * *

 

“This is amazing, Esther, absolutely amazing.” 

I try to look modest. I could still lose this. Though it’s not very likely. But there’s no point in appearing overconfident.

We’ve been listening to the final mix of my song. It’s several months behind schedule — our original schedule, that is. Everything has had to work around _The Istanbul Four_ _—_ which is, of course, ruthlessly on-schedule. But they are still on board with the song. It’s not their top priority, but they’re still on board. They’re looking at getting me booked to record the music vid. Carl has told me that twice during this meeting, and I have no doubt, as he rambles on about marketing stuff I don’t even need to know about, that he’ll begin to approach the topic of an actual date at some point.

“ ... there's really a quality to your voice that ... that just works, it really works ..."  


Ramesh leans over to Javier and whispers, “Can I see her schedule?”

“Ah, yes,” Carl beams and intercepts the phone just as Javier is handing it. “Good idea. Thank you.”

It’s not entirely clear who he’s thanking.

“Now let’s see … your schedule is quite full, Esther …”

I smile.

“… but we should be able to fit it in here … or here.” He pokes at the screen. “Oh … I see you’re going to be appearing on the _Climb Up!_ vidcast next week.”

“Yes, they got that booked —“

“— of course. It’s never too early to think about pre-publicity. Never too early. And I see — here — oh — does it get confusing for you, filming out of order?

What? Why would he ask that? He must be poking around deep in my on-set schedule — which he has no reason to do — but anyway …

“I’m used to it,” I answer. “I’ve never worked in any other way.”

I could have tried harder to make that sound tactful, but Carl doesn’t seem to have noticed. “Of course, of course,” he mutters, still poking, then suddenly looks up.

“You know what?” he announces. “I’m going to have to leave this to my people. They can coordinate with the studio better than I can.”

He hands the phone to Ramesh, who hands it to Javier, because it’s Javier’s phone.

“I’ll send you a copy,” says Javier. He does so, immediately. Ramesh’s phone beeps.

“Well, if that’s all settled, I’ll be going now.” That’s Trevor, my agent, who only got here about three minutes ago and has been on his own phone the whole time.

In fairness, he is genuinely very busy and he’s got my vid schedule looking great for the next few years. And I don’t actually need to see him in person very often. He didn’t even really need to be here, but he apparently decided to make sure I remembered his face.

“Yes, I think we’ve all had a very productive meeting,” says Carl.

“Absolutely.” Trevor manages to shake Carl’s hand and move himself towards the door at the same time, a move I’m very familiar with. Then, about half a second later, Trevor is gone.

Possibly he was here as a reminder that technically, I do have the power to turn down a role.

“Is there anything else?” I say, standing up.

“What? Oh, no, Esther.” Carl is absorbed in his own phone, which he has apparently remembered he had with him all along. Then he suddenly looks up. “But I really do want to emphasize, Esther, I really do want to say again, just how impressive your sound is. It’s not just me that thinks so, really it isn’t … I’ve been talking to …”

I smile until I can go. His enthusiasm, I tell myself, is a good sign. They really are on board with me. I’m smiling for real as I walk back to my apartment. I have the rest of the day off and I’m going to take advantage of it. Coming up is a week of solid vid recording. Then my _Climb Up!_ appearance.

Ugh. That dims my mood only slightly. They’ll get higher-quality media closer to the date. Time to practice laughing at non-jokes.

 

* * *

 

“Olivia … Olivia … that was amazing.”

“Save it for when I’ve saved you.”

I throw her from my shoulder onto the car seat — Min helps with that — she’s small but a human is still pretty heavy. And I brandish the replica of a 2050s medgel.

“I hope this works.”

“Olivia … Olivia … my angel…”

“Phan, you’re hallucinating.”

“I would follow you anywhere.”

“Don’t put me on a pedestal.”

Min gasps and shudders. We’ve done this so many times by now but it’s still startling every time — something in me really believes she’s coming back from the brink of death, air rushing back into her frail body …

Not frail at all, really, but she is so good at this …

And so am I. I channel power, fervency, long-suppressed emotion …

“There. Get up.”

Yes, it shows in those three words.

“You don’t understand. Olivia, you don’t understand what you mean to us. We would do anything for you, pay any price—“

“Would you get up for me? I need to get into the driver’s seat.”

“No price is too high…”

“Collette! Please!”

That line went through a lot of rewrites before they finally went with _simple_.

I show fear on my face — they’ll add in the yelling guards and plasma shots later — and half-climb over her, half-push her out of the way, and grab the steering wheel. She finally pulls herself up as an alarm goes off and I curse, “Bloody software in everything!”

My accent is perfect.

There will be more noises here. I fumble desperately for a small chip, find it.

“Looks like we’re doing things the hard way.”

I shove in the chip and hack the car.

“Cut!”

I relax.

“Did you get everything, M— Jorge?”

“I think so, Yvon. But we were going to do that last bit, too?”

“Yes, yes, I know. Are you ready, talent?”

Min and I affirm in unison.

We’ve already done all the driving, but we need to do the part where she sinks back down onto my shoulder, her eyes unfocused, and moans, “You … you could suck my very essence away and I would only be left more whole.”

That line is a relic from earlier versions of the script that had a subplot about vampirism that got dropped because Yvon thought it was too weird. I have to say I agree — it was thematically coherent but didn’t fit the tone of the rest of the vid at all. Though apparently it was based on Draco, the real PEIA conspirator. Some things are stranger than fiction.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying all the versions of the script. And I’ve done some research of my own, research I didn’t even really need to do, research that has no bearing on my _acting_ — though I didn’t dig too deeply. There is no point in drawing attention to myself. 

They’ve kept the real names of all the PEIAists — but for Draco, they’ve essentially invented a completely original character. More or less the same for Cygne. Who’s the one of the final four who’s getting the least focus anyway. 

Collette Phan and Derek Mossman … they kept their backstories almost to the letter, but I’m not sure how close their personalities are to reality. Well, I know Derek is almost certainly not that accurate. The portrayal of Phan does seem pretty close to her public persona, at least. There is a lot of easy-to-find footage of her.

But I don’t need to worry about any of that. All I need to know is that Min is an extremely good actor. As am I.

It doesn’t hurt to remind myself of that.


	3. Chapter 3

“This is not as bad as it could be.” Carl looks like he’s going through hell. “This is nowhere near as bad as it could be.”

Ramesh doesn’t take his eyes off his phone as he says, “The buzz for _The Istanbul Four_ hasn’t taken a dip at all. In fact it’s still climbing, though more slowly than before. Our other properties, on the other hand …”

“Will survive,” says Victor, speaking confidently. He looks like he wants to give Carl a towel, or maybe some downers. “Sankaku-ME won this one, I admit. Won this week. But there’s always next week.”

Victor Thornton is one of Holovid’s marketing execs. I’ve only met him in person a few times, but I’ve very familiar with him. He’s very active on social media.

ME is Sankaku’s media arm. The word "arm" is appropriate, of course, because this leak was an act of war. A very small one, but no one in this meeting is under any illusions about what it was. It was calculated to take profit away from FTM.

But anyway, FTM makes a point of always referring to ME as Sankaku-ME, because they have a product of their own called the Me. It’s a product that’s been off the market for years — I can’t even remember what it was — some kind of wearable? Anyway, they're really just doing it to be petty. And to make sure that no-one forgets that ME isn’t _FTM_ media. To make sure that people know who they can trust _._

“Of course, of course, our properties will recover. Of course. Will recover.” Carl wipes his forehead with his hand. Ramesh picks up a water bottle that was already on the table and puts it down again closer to Carl. Carl apparently doesn’t notice.

“I just want to know,” I say softly, “if I should continue with my script. If the feud is still going ahead.” 

I won’t ask about the song, not yet …

“I’m afraid not.” Victor smiles at me. “Sankaku’s bombshell is completely dominating this news cycle. As I said, they’ve won this one. So there’s simply no point in even trying to put anything out there right now. Well, not unless it was something far more compelling than … anything we have in the works right now, to be honest.”

I smile back. “I understand.”

“And unfortunately, that leaves us with no space in our schedule, as we recover, for your current ongoing publicity efforts.”

“For the feud?”

“For the feud, as you call it. Yes. We’ve been — ”

“We _should_ be able to use this against _them_ ,” Carl interrupts, a sudden fire in his eyes. “ _They_ had this information too, and didn’t tell us — well, okay, okay, I suppose that wouldn’t have made sense — but they _equally_ didn’t tell K &O, they’re equally guilty …”

“There are people on it, Carl,” says Victor tolerantly. Carl stares at him for a moment, then suddenly remembers something urgent on his phone.

The whole thing shouldn’t be that big a deal, I can’t help thinking. But that’s not really something you say in this business. And of course I do understand the political implications. It is big.

All Sankaku has done is leaked info revealing that in late 2068, during the Fall Siege of Dublin — wow, was that really only a year ago? Feels longer. I was working on _You Ain’t Hiding From Me_ then …

Anyway, they’ve released intel that clearly shows that, in 2068, FTM had found out the whereabouts of one particularly notorious hacker and didn’t share the information with K&O. And yes, the docs do indict Sankaku equally, but no one was _expecting_ Sankaku and K&O to get along …

Oh, yes, because this might be the thing that breaks K&O and FTM’s already tenuous not-entirely-official not-entirely-alliance. This could mean outright war between North America and Europe.

And I don’t think it will. I know people are worried — it’s not just Carl — Kieran is worried — news personalities who I trust to be only mildly hyperbolic, if nothing else, are worried … 

But last night, when I switched the holoprojector off, I felt completely calm. And then I went to bed and didn’t lose any sleep.

Of course, I’m basing this mostly on cynicism and the fact that nothing really bad has happened between K&O and FTM since the early 60s —

Cynicism? Is that the right word? Well, of course it’s the right word in general, but _specifically_ …

Specifically, I mean … that I’m running on a certain sense that big dramatic events rarely turn out to be that big or that dramatic. The end of the world never happens.

The Fall Siege was just a localized rebellion, of course.

“ … for the next week, at least. Then we’ll have to prioritize our most valuable properties.” 

Victor. I tune back in. 

“And you do seem to be taking this well, Ms. Martins.” 

I look up into Victor’s eyes and I know that he knows. He knows that I’m relieved. Knows that I didn’t like the feud, and knows that I’m trying not to show my relief now …

But there is … respect there. Completely meaningless respect, since there’s not a chance in Hell of it turning into trust — but it’s still there. He knows that I am completely professional about not showing my relief.

“Well, it does give me more time to focus on my other projects,” I say breezily.

The feud had reached the point where I was actually needing to expend a certain amount of mental energy to keep track of it.

Victor nods, understanding perfectly. “The feud was struggling anyway. It never quite got the traction we’d hoped.” He leans forward. “Not because of you, Esther. You played your part perfectly.”

“Thanks.” He has the decency to refer to it as a _part_.

“And —” he pretends to be checking his tablet, “— while this latest development has interfered with the release for your song — with just about everything we’re doing, if I’m being honest — I can assure you this is only a temporary setback.”

I don’t show this relief either, but gratitude seems appropriate. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank us. We can recognize a good investment when we see it. Now, it seems —” now he is actually checking his tablet, I can tell, “— we had so far made no official announcement about the launch of your singing career.”

I nod. “They’ve been talking about waiting until after the release of _The Istanbul Four._ I mean, they were saying that before … all this, and it hasn’t changed, as far as I know. You’re the first person I’ve met with. This morning.”

The Sankaku news only broke last night.

He holds up his hand. “Gotcha. Well, we’ll be in touch. The right people will be in touch.” He looks around. “Your assistant isn’t here?”

Somewhat awkwardly, Ramesh chooses that moment to come back into the room. I hadn’t noticed him leave, but he has a coffee for Carl.

“Javier had another meeting,” I say quickly. “Though it was about the feud, so possibly he hasn’t got the latest memo?”

“Oh, that wouldn’t surprise me. We are slightly less than our optimally efficient selves this morning, I must admit.” He's joking, self-aware of his language. “Sankaku has caught us out more than _some people_ would like to admit. But anyway, we’ll make sure you get the schedules you need —”

“Thanks.”

“— and your promotional appearances for _The Istanbul Four_ will probably remain unchanged. The details aren’t up to me, of course, but that’s how I see it now. We’ve been impressed with your work on promotion so far —”

Oh, yes. The _Climb Up!_ thing went well, and they even let me talk about feminism.

“— and _The Istanbul Four_ , I must say, is apparently unstoppable.” He laughs. “Even Sankaku can’t take that one down.”

“I wasn’t too worried about that anyway,” I say. “It didn’t seem likely that you’d abandon it now after putting so much into it.”

“Well, now …” He looks slightly less approving. “We certainly know about the sunk cost fallacy.”

“Of course.”

“Well, we know about it in theory.” He winks, actually winks. “To tell you a little secret, it would be extremely hard to convince some people to cut their losses on it at this point.”

I try to look as though I’ve been let in on a secret. “Ah.”

“But that’s … well, we won’t take up any more of your time.” He puts his phone away decisively and shakes my hand. “Thank you, Ms. Martins.”

“Thank _you_.”

“Yes, thank you, Esther. Good meeting.” Carl looks up, speaking loudly, sounding more like his normal self, though he immediately returns to pecking frantically at his phone.

“Yes. Very productive, all things considered.” Victor’s voice has no hint of irony. “But we should let Ms. Martins get back to her schedule.”

I smile. I’m actually free today, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“You’re almost done with filming, aren’t you?” Victor raises his voice slightly as he turns away from me to open the door.

“Almost. Only a few weeks left.”

“Oh? What are you working on now?”

“Well … next up they’re killing me.”

“What?” Carl’s head shoots up from his phone, and even Victor looks startled.

“Sorry. I forgot how used I am to taking about it. On set.” I smile. “The execution scene.”

“Oh.” Victor understands. He winces in sympathy. “Well, then, I’m not sure if under the circumstances I should say _break a leg_ …”

“Why not?” I laugh. And then I go.

 

* * *

 

“Prism, let me take this up with Mateo. This isn’t right.”

“They gave me the rest of the week off. And it’s over. That scene. They have everything they need.”

“They’re still pushing you too hard.”

“I’m pushing myself hard. I know it looked disturbing, Kieran. It was disturbing. I’m not sure if I want to watch it. I’m considering asking if they’ll bend the visibility rules during premieres to let me just … sort of slip out for the last thirty minutes.”

“Prism …”

I grip his hand and look up into his face to reassure him. “But what you saw in there, that intensity… that was all my choice.”

“I’m pretty sure you can’t choose to pass out.”

“Actually, with these new neural recorders, I think you can. They make you … very aware of your consciousness. Or at least, you can sort of … see the unconsciousness coming, and choose to push yourself there.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy.” He laughs, almost sarcastically. “I know you’re pushing yourself hard, but why? You’re here to give them your image, not your life force.”

“Life force? You haven’t joined that new cult that’s going around, have you?”

“This is serious. You … I … Prism, I almost wonder if you trust them too much?”

_You’re the one who apparently has faith in the ombudsperson_ , I think but don’t say. Instead I pull myself up into a sitting position.

“Kieran, I trust everyone at Holovid — with the exception of you — considerably less far than I can throw them. But this is — and I know this will sound corny — about art. I know it started out as corporate propaganda. Still is. I know it is. I hate some parts of it. But I still … look, I gave them permission to use all the footage from when I was unconscious, and that was my choice, entirely my choice. This is for the art. It’s just something I have to do. It may not make sense, but …”

I stop.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. It’s just … after a while she kind of gets into your head and you feel like everything you’re saying is a speech.”

“Oh. Yeah. I know the feeling. When I was in _Desolation: Brisbane_ …”

“I think I will be glad when this is over.” I stand up from the sofa. “But right now, I’m getting some ice cream.”

 

* * *

 

This is trouble.

I can tell from the way they’re all lined up in a row as I enter the room, behind a table, with one chair for me on the other side. I can tell from the fact that they specifically requested I come to this meeting without Javier — which isn’t exactly a sacrifice, but the request is _weird_. I can tell from the way they’re _not_ smiling — but _not smiling_ in a way that’s just slightly too … friendly? No, _friendly_ is not the right word. But there is something in their faces that conveys just a hint of a smile, and I can tell, somewhere in my gut, that _serious_ would be preferable.

My agent is there, but he’s sitting with Carl and Victor and Sebastian Carroll. Between them and a line of lawyers.

One of the lawyers is Black. The others all look Latinx. None of them are ones I recognize.

“Esther,” says Victor, “this is Seb Carroll, the VP of Public Relations.”

I already knew who he is, and I’ve been introduced to him once before, but I smile and say, “Pleased to meet you.” 

Nothing about the set-up indicates that I should go up to the table and lean over and shake his hand. The chair they have positioned for me is too far away from the table.

“Pleasure,” says Seb, looking me in the eyes.

There is nothing exceptional about his eyes. He wishes they looked cold — I can tell — but they’re just kind of there. Blue, though.

Might be contacts.

“Sit down,” says Victor. “Please.”

I sit down.

They give me plenty of time to make sure my skirt is adjusted. Victor, when he begins, seems reluctant.

“Esther … we are not the people here who normally concern ourselves with the details of your acting process …”

“Yes?”

“But we have come to a … that is, we must express some concern about your motivations.”

I tilt my head.

“Throughout recording, we until now — we had no reason to suspect — forgive me, I should not say _suspect_ … we had no reason to _assume_ …”

He’s following a script. These pauses are planned. This bad imitation of Carl is deliberate. Someone better than Victor might be able to pull it off, but he can’t. I can see it. 

Unfortunately, it still gives me no insight into where all this is going.

He clears his throat. “We had no reason to assume there was any misplaced synergy between your professional and your personal life.”

What? Is this about Kieran? I don’t see how it could be, but …

Also … “Misplaced synergy? I’m sorry?”

He smiles. Sort of. “This may be our fault, Esther. We were so concerned with your ability — excellent ability, by the way — to play a _role_ that we neglected to look more closely at _you_.”

Is this about the feud? That makes slightly more sense, but …

I speak. “I’ve always been completely on board with your branding. With your image for me.” I let my voice rise slightly in confusion, though not quite enough to make it a question.

Victor looks at the tablet he's holding, then raises his eyes — very seriously now — to me. “As long as you’ve been with us, yes, you have. Do you use method acting, Esther?”

“What?” This is a change of topic, but I recover. “Yes, among other approaches. I use whatever works for the particular role. I went through Holovid’s training program. You know what classes I’ve taken, what instructors I’ve worked with. And directors. You could look it up, if you —”

He raises his hand to cut me off. “Yes, yes. But we’re more concerned with what you bring to the roles yourself. Where they end and _you_ begin.”

Okay, I’m still not completely sure this isn’t just about the feud. Do they want to revive it? Oh God, no. But it would be better than … at least I would know …

But if so, this panel is the oddest way to go about it. This panel of … _lawyers_ …

“In your latest role, as Olivia Gladstone …”

He pauses, as though the end of the sentence is obvious.

“Yes?” I ask.

“How did you approach it? Tell us about your process.”

“I … it’s …” I look straight at them. “I don’t even know where to begin. I didn’t come here prepared for an interview. None of you are Hunter DeGuilio.”

They do laugh at that, slightly, even the lawyers. They let it be a joke. They give it its moment.

Then Victor raises his hand again. “Yes, but surely you can give us some insight into _you._ You must know how you did it.”

“I’m sorry …” I try for innocence, even as I can tell that it’s not quite coming across, that my voice isn’t quite right. “I don’t understand. Do what? I’m an actor. I acted. What more is there to say? And why is it important right now?”

Seb sighs. In a way that commands the attention of everyone in the room, and stops Victor cold.

Seb leans forwards, looks at me closely. “What we really want to know, Esther, is if you can give us any particular insight into how you were able to give such a sympathetic portrayal of an anti-corporate terrorist?”

He emphasizes the words _anti-corporate_.

Oh … 

I speak. “Because that’s the performance you asked me to give.” 

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“I’m a professional.”

“What?”

My voice did sink lower there. “I’m a professional actor,” I repeat.

“Yes, of course you are.” Seb smiles. “But we were hoping you could elaborate a little for us on your motivation.”

I speak very clearly. “A paycheque.”

He waits. I have nothing more to say. He waits some more, then abruptly taps his knuckles against the table. “Well, I must say, that isn’t really how I had planned to get to this point, but you have brought us to the nub of the issue.” 

Now he drums with his fingers. “Holovid is a business, and while up till now we have had a satisfactory business relationship with you …”

Once again, he waits for an answer. But I’m not going to give it, and also know he doesn’t really want it.

When he’s paused for effect long enough, he drops the bomb. “We can no longer have you associated with us, Esther.”

I wait.

“You know that we don’t demand purity of our stars …”

_Like hell you …_

But there is no point paying attention to that thought. I listen.

“… has always been our ethos to prove ourselves worthy of the public’s trust. And this video that has come to light …”

He says “video”, not “vid”.

Also not a thought worth paying attention to, Prism. 

“… well, I say ‘come to light’, but there is no reason not to tell you that it was Adrienne Winter’s lawyers who brought it to our attention.”

“What, _Adrienne_?” The words come out without my meaning them to, but now that I’ve started I may as well finish. “You mean she actually cared? Or did she just do this out of petty rivalry?”

Carl looks confused. “She means, _really cared about the feud_ ,” Victor explains to him in a stage whisper. Carl nods.

“Be all that as it may,” Seb says, louder than before, “We must focus this discussion on _your_ actions, Esther. Your past actions.”

Was Adrienne even my rival? In the feud? On the opposite side from me, by the point where it ended? It took some strange turns there, just before Sankaku … never mind. But now I can’t even remember …

I knew this, I was on top of this, but my mind seems to be freezing up, about _this_ of all things, which is just silly … 

Yes, it is silly, and irrelevant. Listen to what they’re saying.

“ … engaged in something might technically fit the definition of a ‘protest’…”

I can hear, can feel, the tweezers with which he handles the word.

“ … and actively and directly contravening the peace-keeping activities of Plastech security forces …”

When I first started working for Holovid, when I first started getting roles, I did occasionally worry about this coming to light. But it never did, so I stopped thinking about it. And really, I was never very worried. If they hadn’t found it when they first hired me … 

If it hadn’t come up when they first ran a background check so I could play “confused woman with baguette” or whatever it was, it was never going to come up.

So why has it come up now? How …

I had to go through auditions like everyone else, by the way. Spend years playing extras. My parents didn’t help me. I mean the possibility never came up. Of their being able to help me. I’m not sure if they would have if they could. I really don’t know. Probably not … they believe in hard work …. but …

Irrelevant.

“… and while we are aware that, in situations like these, there are always, ahem, outside agitators …”

Whatever they have cannot possibly show me clearly … just as one face in a crowd …

Oh. Oh. The only possible way Adrienne could have found this is if she hired people to go through every vid recorded by a phone in Nairobi in the right time period. On the off chance that they would find something.

Wow.

Okay, it really wouldn’t take too long, with facial recognition software. It’s just that no one had thought to look before.

“Well, I’ll let Carl take it from here.” Seb gestures. He has concluded. He has stopped talking. Carl clears his throat. He folds his hands and looks right at me.

His voice is soft, too soft. “I wish this hadn’t happened, Esther. I have enjoyed working with you, really I have. I wish this hadn’t … that is, you were young, but you had _potential_ … I could always see that. I always tried to make sure you knew that, Esther.”

Victor and Seb are both patiently waiting as Carl speaks, and the look in their eyes is one of _sympathy_. For me. They think he’s doing what needs to be done. And doing a very sensitive job of it.

“We understand,” Carl goes on, “we understand you were fourteen and impressionable, maybe under some bad influences …”

“The only influence I was under at the age of fourteen was that of my parents.” I cut him off.

And I know, even as it rises in me, that this is not defiance, not in any meaningful sense. I am going for broke only because everything is already in pieces. “And my parents worked hard to make sure I didn’t grow up in a bubble. They had me out volunteering. They made sure I saw the poverty, the oppression, the corpstate violence…”

At “corpstate violence” there is an audible gasp from Carl.

“Well,” says Seb, rasing his eyebrows. “It seems you have shown your, um…”

“True colours? Yes. I have.”

The look that flashes across his face is not even appreciation. I will not kid myself on that. It’s still sympathy.

“Well,” says Seb. “Well. Since we’re all on the same page, let’s make some things clear. Your career is over. But we’ve already sunk a lot into _The Istanbul Four_ , so we need you to keep filming. I understand you have mostly pick-ups left, but also a few significant scenes.”

He doesn’t wait for confirmation from anyone, least of all me, as he goes on. “Now, don’t get any ideas. We have more than enough recorded — we could easily produce an award-winner if you dropped dead tomorrow. But since you are still around, you will keep filming. You will keep doing publicity, which will be quite intense in the coming months. We will pretend to support you throughout all the publicity. As far as the public knows, nothing has changed.”

Victor coughs, and Seb smiles. “Ah, yes, I should explain this. We’ve made a deal with Sankaku.”

Sankaku?

“Both they and we understand that we cannot suppress this video forever. Well, we could, but we have come to a more mutually beneficial arrangement.”

Oh. I understand. Sankaku knows about the vid. Adrienne has already leaked it onto SubNet. Or Sankaku has after she leaked it to them. Yes, that's more likely. But no one has seen it yet, because FTM is on it. But even though they _could_ hunt down every seed indefinitely …

“… they saw that doing things this way generates the maximum amount of news for everyone. Win-win.” He pauses. He knows what he’s doing. “Under the details of our agreement, Sankaku-ME gets the official scoop. After — only after — _The Istanbul Four_ has been released and done well.”

They could charge Adrienne with … treason? No, not the word. Economic terrorism? Anyway, they could go after her for something. But they’re not.

“So, Esther, your schedule for the next few months is exactly the same as it was before.”

Calm. I am calm. Calm is not in itself a virtue, but it will serve me here.

“You will make every appearance we had planned, and we may add some new ones. Maybe P-Expo …”

He leans back. There is silence, in which …

“I know what you’re about to say, Esther. You’re thinking of asking, _what’s stopping me now?_ What’s preventing you from burning your bridges.”

I wait.

“And Esther, we’ve thought of that, but I almost think we didn’t need to. You are an extremely good actor, Esther. You do it for the art, you truly do, and you would keep on doing it for the art no matter what. You wouldn’t let _The Istanbul Four_ die, no matter how much you might feel like it now.” He shakes his head, understandingly. “But just in case that isn’t enough — and because none of us are pretending that your promotional appearances on chat vidcasts are art — I’d like you to remind you that the technology we’re using is still largely experimental. It would be possible for you to have a stroke.”

Oh. That does make sense.

“It’s never happened to any of our talent before, but your dedication to your craft is such that it might cause you to push yourself too hard. It would be a huge story. A tragedy. And of course we’ll know that you would have wanted _The Istanbul Four_ released. The last thing you worked on.”

They do have a plan that makes sense.

“So, I think we have — Esther? Esther?”

I nod, then hate myself for it.

“Esther, you now know what’s going to happen. Well, not quite. I haven’t gone over what happens after the release, after _The Istanbul Four_ has been a smash success, after people are talking about awards. Talking about you for awards.” 

_ Never. Never let it be said that I thought that I could win anything by playing this game. Maybe I did, once.  _

“I haven’t yet explained why Sankaku agreed so easily to a deal with us. Not entirely.”

It’s all so clear. That’s all I’m feeling now. No emotion, just clarity. 

“There is more than one video of you, Esther.”

Oh, that. Yeah.

He expects a response.

“Okay.” 

He expects more of a response.

“One’s from March 17th, 2059?” I say. “And the other is March 24th?” 

“You remember the dates?”

“They were memorable occasions.”

About six months after the signing of the San Francisco Accord, and a few months before my parents moved us to California …

And almost two years after Olivia Gladstone’s … defeat. The Istanbul Hotel ended things in Europe, but there were a few places where fighting went on for a while longer. It all failed. Of course.

Seb is talking again.

“They release the first one, which is not too bad. And you have a brief shot at redemption, Esther. We stand by you. Say something about youthful indiscretions. You apologize and we let them savage you and we defend you with equal fervour, though always without approving of your actions.”

He pauses. “It makes for more news if our message is a bit mixed.”

Clarity. Everything is clear. Clear in that I know that everything he’s saying will come true, and I also know that I will do everything perfectly. I will smile in the right places and say the right lines. But never, never let it be said that I thought I could change anything in this world. In their world. Never let it be said that I thought they were fools that I could slip something by. Well, Carl is a fool, but that’s irrelevant.

“It dies down, and we release the latest Frink, and there’s a minor kerfuffle around that. Over something offensive he says, I believe.” Seb looks to Victor for confirmation. Gets it.

_ Never, never … _

_ Never let it be said that I believed in the power of charm to achieve anything but my own survival. _

“Then a few weeks after that, Sankaku releases the second video, and we drop you like a hot potato and throw you to the dogs and whatever other cliches you want. What do you say to that?”

I am calm. I am breathing.

“The second vid? That wouldn’t, by any chance, be one where I’m singing the popular song ‘You Fucked the People in San Francisco’?”

In the silence that follows, Carl looks genuinely shocked — not by the language, but as though he, throughout all of this, _heroically_ , didn’t believe _that_ of me. 

Fuck him.

I stand up. “Is there anything else? You’ve made everything clear.”

“No,” says Seb. “We have. And you’ll be getting all of this in writing anyway. Well, in legal language. You’ll need to sign.”

“We’ll make sure you get all of that,” says Carl, as though he really thinks he’s being helpful. And beside him, my agent, who has been silent through all this, nods in confirmation.

“Yes,” says Seb. “So no, Esther, there is nothing else for now. Unless you have something else you’d like to say.”

_I tore myself apart for you._

I did not want more clarity. I do not need it, not now. But it comes anyway, as I stand there, looking at the faces looking back at me. Victor, Seb, Carl. My agent and the lawyers are all looking at their phones.

_And you know it. There is no possible way you don’t know it. You have petabytes of raw data. You have people whose job it is to analyze the readouts._

But the words that are coming into the part of the brain that controls my tongue are, absurdly, _you bastards_ , and _fat cats,_ and _—_ seriously, where did I get that phrase from, was it from some old vid I watched?— and … and … _who still says “video”, Seb?_

_Is this the final curtain, then?_ What?

What? There … I find it. Find something.

“I don’t suppose any of you want my autograph, first?”

They just stare. That didn’t even come across as a joke. They’re not even puzzled. Just blank.

I turn to go. Just go. The door is there. Then I stop and look back over my shoulder, as words come to the surface, usable words. I smile. “And it feels so fucking good to drop this charade.”

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t, of course, in the weeks that come. They keep me busy signing papers and meeting with lawyers and people who actually call themselves _transition_ _counsellors_ and who are acting like Holovid hasn’t yet decided what they’re going to do with me.  _A_ _fter_. That they don’t already know where they’re going to have me live. Hey, can’t have me flapping around loose …

And I insist on hard copies of every document and ask clear questions and pretend I don’t notice when they don’t give me answers and pretend the hard copies mean something and pretend that this is all … no, I am under no illusions that this is a dream. I do not allow myself illusions. But it feels that way.

For a few days my adrenaline keeps interfering with the neural recordings, but then it fades. Of course I’m still recording for _The Istanbul Four_  through all of this. At least I’m busy.

The settlement they’re giving me is insultingly low. Though of course it would be a small fortune to some people. I know that. 

Many people. Most people.

I cannot really call it imprisonment. What my life will be like from now on.

And they’re still giving me all the money I was due for _The Istanbul Four_ , which is not insubstantial. Though the days of stars making tens of millions are long past. Why did I even think of that? Oh, right, watched an old vid. A documentary. A few days ago? Time runs weirdly, now.

Giving me? No, not giving. Don’t think like that, Prism.

Then it all dies down. I've signed everything I can possibly sign. And I can almost pretend it’s just like regular recording. The publicity blitz hasn’t started yet. Calm before the storm. I know I should enjoy it while it lasts — but, well, people never do use the phrase “calm before the storm” to mean an enjoyable rest period, do they?

Unless they’re looking at things in hindsight.

Obviously my appointment for recording the music vid has been cancelled. Obviously. I keep having to remind myself. That it’s not on my schedule.

I wonder what would happen if I just showed up at the studio.

They have security, that’s what would happen. Seriously, Prism. You really are living in a dream world.

 

* * *

 

“My God, Prism, I am so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I doubted you, I made this about you, and … and … fuck! Those fucking pieces of shit.”

“It’s on them, not you. And I was —“

“You’ve known for weeks, and they forced you to not tell me? They forced you to not tell me?” 

He’s repeating it as though he thinks that if he finds the right way to emphasize the words, he can make them not true.

“They … they … no!” He takes a step back. Actually directs his words to the ceiling. “No! No!”

Remember, Prism, he’s learning about it for the first time.

“I … I do not accept this! I cannot!”

It comes out in a burst — _acting_ — and then, suddenly, we’re both laughing as we both become aware of what he sounded like — overdramatic, that was drama, that was good drama — and it feels good, all of our tension running free, running out into a place where it can grow to the size of a screen …

But we can’t keep it up for long, and the bubble bursts — we stop laughing and reality ceases being fiction and becomes reality again. And he knows there’s nothing he can do.

“At least you can … make your own life now?” His voice is low. He knows it’s not much. And I won’t even have that, anyway.

Most people watch things on tiny screens anyway, though the corps build dedicated holovenues, build screens the size of buildings in the centres of cities ...

“No,” I tell him. “You know they don’t like things they can’t control. I’ll effectively be under house arrest. I don’t know where, yet.”

But a lot of people have good reasons for avoiding public gatherings …

“What? They can’t do that — oh, fuck it. Yes, I realize what I just said.”

Kieran has always been politically astute, but I’ve never heard him so bitter.

“You know, it’s not like they even really have anything. On you, I mean. They could dig into anyone’s past and find something worse.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Well, maybe not in mine. I can’t think of anything, honestly.” He’s pacing now, in great strides between the sofa and the window. I think he’s mainly talking to himself. “Maybe a few SubNet posts, if you really dig. Though I do have family connections ... distant ones, but you could connect me to them, who are communists, actual communists …”

He seems to realize his striding isn’t taking him anywhere. “I’m sorry. This is nothing you don’t already know. I’m just … I guess I’m just looking for something, for …”

I pat the sofa next to me. He sits down.

“Can your parents do anything?”

“No. They’re dependent on Holovid for their money too.”

“Shit. I know that. Like mine. I’m sorry …”

“It’s okay.” It hadn’t actually occurred to me, until now, that my parents’s situation is kind of similar to what mine will be. Living in comfortable “retirement” in a location chosen by Holovid. By FTM. Though in their cases, it is actually retirement, and while my mother would have liked to get in a few more years, my father was actually glad to no longer be acting. He had some health problems that were being made worse by stress.

No, he did _not_ have a drug problem — I’d almost forgotten that old bit of nonsense. But it doesn’t matter now and it died down fairly quickly anyway. Unlike this.

“I can’t tell them about this until after the release,” I say to Kieran. I’m not looking forward to it. I actually don’t know how it will go. 

I do keep in touch with them regularly — I don’t forget I’m their daughter — but there’s a reason we have a schedule for it. And they aren't like they were when I was younger.

Kieran knows all this. He doesn’t ask about it. He can relate. To some of it. We don’t normally talk about our families much.

Mine actually looks pretty functional compared to his …

“Will they send you to the same place? As your parents?”

“The Bahamas? I doubt it.”

“Sorry.” He winces, and we both know what’s unspoken. My parents aren’t actually being punished. And of course they’re watched, but …

… well, their lives really are ninety-nine percent like those of people living comfortably in retirement, and we both know that’s not what’s in store for me.

“They actually said house arrest,” at one point, I repeat. “The lawyers.”

Difference between an honourable versus dishonourable discharge, I suppose … 

I hadn’t looked at it that way …

“Will they allow you … visitors?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But they haven’t stopped me from seeing you so far.”

“But does that mean anything? It hasn’t dropped yet …”

“Kieran, I don’t know. But they haven’t mentioned you at all, and they probably would have by now if they were going to. That’s something.”

“Prism, I … I …”

I lean close, and he takes my head into his arms.

 

* * *

 

White dress, Atelier Versace Couture, 60,000 CR.

They have me inventorying my clothes. They want me to estimate the price of everything. Possibly so that they can deduct all the clothes I take with me from the settlement money. They haven’t actually been clear on that. Or on whether I’ll be allowed to take any of my designer clothes at all. Or anything.

I know what they’re doing. So I make clear lists and ask clear questions and … continue with the dream world, for a little while.

They’ve decided I’m going to be living in London, which incidentally is proof that, as far as the whole K&O and FTM situation goes, they’re doing _fine_. The alliance not damaged at all.

Givenchy dress. With some help from my phone, I estimate it at 25,000 CR.

Yes, they’ve offered people to help me, but that would be worse.

Inexplicably expensive designer hoodie. Grey. 2500 CR.

_Yes, it’s me again. Back from oblivion. Knock-out resistance. Another new bit of our oh-so-evil technology._

Somewhat more explicably expensive designer camisole top with custom tailoring. 11,500 CR. I make a specific note about the custom tailoring being included in my estimate.

_So, here we are. Gladstone. You versus me. Corp versus PEIA._

Lime green sheath dress that had somehow got in with my tops. Louis Vuitton. I wore it to the premiere of … whatever that vid was. The shitty comedy. 30,000 CR.

_And if we’re playing that game — the one we played before — I know what you’re thinking. That you didn’t get away because you weren’t fast enough. But that isn’t why you lost. You are fast, Gladstone. And clever, and good with words. But that wasn’t enough. You’ll never understand that. You lost because what you wanted didn’t represent the will of the people. And you’ve never, never, understood what that was._

Federico brand v-neck black t-shirt. 10 CR. Federico is FTM’s “cheap-chic” line. Can I take that with me, at least? Can they arrange that?

_Do you think I really care about having the newest phone, or the shiniest car? Or that I even care about competition for its own sake? But I care about having the choice. About the choice and competition that together make for the greatest freedom. And I care about me, having a choice. And I care about the fact that you always, always make things worse. You always try to impose your dream on everyone else._

Federico purple athleticwear mock turtleneck. 15 CR. Can they arrange it so I _don’t_ take that with me? I generally look good in purple but that thing was a mistake.

_Now, I know a thing or two about dreaming. And I’ve listened to your own words about dreams. Yes, Gladstone. I’ve watched your old speeches. I’ve paid attention to your words. I’m not just some mook, not some technologically illiterate pawn, no matter what you’d like to believe._

Black dress, another black dress … where did that one even come from?

_And there you are, still looking at me with pity in your eyes. You’ve lost, and you still think I don’t know what I’m doing. But I have made my choice, Gladstone. I understand it better than you do. And I think I understand you better than you understand yourself. Because I see you as you really are_ … _Olivia._

Oh, right … I wore that one to … that other premiere … _  
_

_He brings his face in close to hers._

_Focus on her lips, but not too obviously._

_Do we want to have blood on her lips? Too obvious? Counter-productive? If we do it needs to be subtle. Just a small crack. – YL_

_Yes go with this – SC_

Not my premiere, Kieran's. I was there as the girlfriend …

_Yes, Olivia. You have this dream about making things better, and it's grown so big in your head that you don’t care about the people it makes the world worse for. You think you’re more the people than everybody else, and you just can't imagine everybody else not seeing it that way._

Trust me, Corp Stand-in, none of that is a problem I’ve ever had.

But Olivia … I don’t know.

Well, what does it matter? She’s fictional.

Well, she wasn’t, but …

The real Olivia Gladstone, that is …

… but there is no point trying to work out what she believed in … what she really …

… especially based on a vid written by the corps … 

… was I thinking entirely clearly, just there? I don’t think I was.

You need to take care of yourself, Prism.

_Everything you touch, you make worse, and even the things you could have made better, you failed at. That’s the truth, Gladstone. That’s all you have left, all you ever —_

Okay. Giorgio Armani black dress. 9500 CR.

No, the clothes can wait. I walk out of my bedroom. I’m going to watch … something old. Something from the twentieth century. A _movie_.

 

* * *

 

>   _oh, you want to believe this was diamond cut diamond_
> 
> _but now we both know that’s not true_

It’s ringing in my head now, my song that will never reach public ears. I don’t even have the recording now.

Of course, I never owned the rights to it. I mean I literally do not have a copy. They made me delete it from my phone.

I was really happy when I thought of the “diamond cut diamond” conceit. It made the whole thing work.

> _you say thank heaven you can see right through me_
> 
> _there are no secrets between me and you_
> 
> _much as I want there to be, between me and you_

I’m at the premiere. I’m wearing a nice dress. My face, as Olivia’s, is three storeys high on a screen. I can recognize some of my bone structure underneath. 

She — I — looks … it’s hard to describe. They chose a very good still there. They had a lot to choose from. She looks confident. Intense. Suspicious, in both senses of the word. Regal. Desperate. Next to her are the words _You never really know your enemy. Until now._ They fade away and are replaced with _The Istanbul Four_. Then it repeats.

They credited me as Esther Martins, not as Prism. That was a last-minute decision, and I honestly don’t know whether or not it was meant as a final insult. Not, of course, because I suspect them of any mercy. But I don’t think they ever really got that I cared about the name. And it smells a lot more like something from the marketing department.

> _maybe I should never have trusted you_
> 
> _but I’ve known you since what feels like the beginning of time, the beginning of time_

What was I trying to do with those lines, anyway? I thought I was being clever, I remember … but it doesn’t matter. Those lines made them happy. Played up the “charming ingenue” angle. Tied things into the feud. Which no one cares about now anyway. 

> _and I know it sound naive, oh_
> 
> _I know it sounds naive, but_
> 
> _I thought you were helping, I thought you were my friend_
> 
> _now I see you were trying to cut me down_
> 
> _does it hurt you to hear it?_
> 
> _does it cut you now?_

I walk down the carpet. Voices, cameras. This is easy. I can do this in a dream. I smile. Lights go off in my face. I barely even blink.

> _you say I can’t see you as you really are_

They nixed “you say I can’t see the big picture”. 

> _and I say you can’t see me_
> 
> _no, you can’t see me now_

At this point, in the vid we had planned, I would have morphed into a variety of different people. It was a tribute. Well, it’s not going to happen now.

> _so yes, this is me_
> 
> _and no, she’s not me_
> 
> _here I stand_
> 
> _I am taking my crystal out of your hands_

More cameras flash. Min is getting so much less attention than me. Maybe I’ll insist on posing with her later, one last way to … do something.

> _because_
> 
> _I will never stop_
> 
> _making prisms_

I sang this as “pri-ii-ii-ii-ii-sums”.

> _a thousand flashing lights on the wall_
> 
> _I will never stop being beautiful_
> 
> _so look at me now_
> 
> _you can’t see me now_
> 
> _you can’t see me now_

They wanted me to rhyme “wall” with “all” and I was really fucking firm on that.

Those lines I wrote instead — they don’t sound like much on their own — but with my voice, and paired with more holovid effects …

Who am I kidding? At the time of that meeting, the _Istanbul Four_ primary trailer had just come out and was receiving record views. That’s the only reason I won that battle.

There is a commotion in the crowd. It parts and … oh no. It’s Sean Jangles. From P-Expo.

Sean, there are straight cis men who could make showing up at a vid premiere in that outfit into a subversive act. You are not that person.

He sidles up to me.

“Why, if it isn’t … Esther? Do I call you Esther, or Prism?"

I’m prepared and don’t draw back as he thrusts his microphone into my face.

“Either one.”

“Well, I do like a girl who’s accommodating.”

I am miles away, I tell myself.

“Now, I have a very important question to ask you. It’s a very important question so you can’t get offended.”

“Go.”

He smiles. “I wanted to ask you, coming off your experience playing Olivia Gladstone, one of the most infamous criminals, the most infamous women, of the twenty-first century …”

“Yes.”

“And I know Holovid was committed to a realistic portrayal — a _sensitive_ portrayal —”

He mugs to the crowd. I wait. 

“ — so I wanted to know if, as a known feminist, you wanted them to add in a scene where she got raped.”

I stare at him. Then I channel her. By this point it requires no effort. This will play, not that it matters. “I think she could kill you with her bare hands.”

“Oh, she’s feisty,” he says.

Everyone erupts into laughter. In an entirely empty way … 

I mean, my reply was a total non-sequitur, but the laughter was … even more so … 

It was … oddly disconnected from the interaction that just happened.

It didn’t matter what I said, I realize. I could have said anything. That reaction was planned by the crowd, as one, from the moment he started talking. Because they’re scared of him. 

> _so you used to believe this was diamond cut diamond_
> 
> _but now you know that’s not true_
> 
> _now you see me, and now you see me different_
> 
> _my head is spinning, but not from you_
> 
> _I am a thousand reflections in a minute_
> 
> _give me a source of light and I will spin it_
> 
> _give me a light and I will flare it wide beyond your wildest dreams_

Okay, that last line is one of those things that sounds good but are basically meaningless. Or, you know, maybe I’m just feeling a bit cynical right now. 

> _oh, I will never stop_
> 
> _making prisms_
> 
> _a thousand flashing lights on the wall_
> 
> _I will never stop being beautiful_
> 
> _so look at me now_
> 
> _you can’t see me now_
> 
> _no, you can’t see me now_

I realize that Daniel, one of the security detail, is walking beside me, his hand on my elbow. I vaguely recall him shepherding me away from Sean. Okay. Fine. 

> _so, here, here, here_
> 
> _here I stand_
> 
> _I am holding my crystal in my own hands_

I really belted those lines.

On screens high above me, over the entrance, the tagline floats by again, and my name.

We’re approaching the thicker crowd at the door, but that presents no problem, it parts before me  _…_

> _You can tell them you fucked the People in San Fran_
> 
> _You can tell them you fucked the People in San Fran_

Okay, no, that’s from a different song. 

> _no, I will never stop_
> 
> _making prisms_
> 
> _a thousand flashing lights on the wall …_

The chorus repeats. Then it’s over.

More camera flashes.

I step up to the door, turn and look back at just the right angle for just the right amount of time, then go in to watch Olivia Gladstone die.


End file.
